j.d. gordon who we've known been involved in washington and advised various campaigns and advising the trump campaign and he says he and another advisor named carter page and tferris met with the russian ambassador during the convention taking place in cleveland over the summer last summer. now that is is important because it was at the convention where j.d. gordon tells me and we spoke on the phone he sought on behalf of the campaign a change in the gop platform that was against arming the ukrainians and obviously a hot top pick at that time. now i'm told by j.d. gordon at no point during their conversations with the russian ambassador, was there offer of a quick quo pro in the battle against hillary clinton, but what j.d. gordon does tell me is that he was trying to pursue the views of the candidate himself, donald trump that were expressed at another meeting back in march that was presided over by jeff sessions, the then senator from alabama, now the attorney general and during this meeting at

. >> but former trump policy adviser j.d. gordon tells nbc news that manafort was not forth wright with us. gordon says he was in the room and told the committee chairman that the amendment was a problem for the campaign. gordon also met with the russian ambassador at the convention. and then there is another person at that meeting. he has change his story. >> i had no meetings, no meetings. >> but on thursday, paige's answer changed. >> did you meet sergei kiss lack? >> i am not going to deny i talked with him. >> we contacted paul manafort

we are talking to j.d. gordon, a national security adviser for the trump campaign before the election. he and other national security advisers to then candidate trump spoke with sergey kislyak last july. it was during these conversations, i'm told by j.d. gordon, they talked about improving relations between the u.s. and russia. it was dur thag time, erin, that j.d. gordon says he went to the convention, advocating on behalf of the campaign for language in the gop platform that advocated against the arming of the ukrainians in their fights against the prorussian rebels. that is something the trump campaign denied they were doing at the time. it denied it was advocating for that language in the gop platform. flash forward to december and according to a senior administration official, the president's son-in-law, jared kushner and the former security adviser, michael flynn, wret with the ambassador during a previously undisclosed meeting. sean spicer talked about two interactions between michael flynn and the russian

cnn has learned that national security adviser at the time j.d. gordon met with the russian ambassador kislyak during the republican national convention in cleveland back in july and also carter page and another adviser. president trump senior aide jared kushner, son-in-law, and michael flynn met with the russian ambassador in trump tower in december. do these meetings which we're now learning about, do they concern you because the suggestion is the ties could go deeper? >> of course, they do. because what you see is a pattern here. it's not any one single conversation that i think is throwing up alarm with noefolks home. i was in a town hall meeting just in the last couple of hours, and a lot of people raised this. it's the pattern at the top. then candidate now president trump said very sympathetic things about putin. i don't know what it is about putin saying that. you have trump saying awfully sympathetic things. that alarms people. this guy is a murder. there is a book, "a very expensive poison" talking about the death of ambassador, and the essenti

j.d. gordon, the me meeting occurred during it. gordon said he and other advisers explained how they would like to see and the campaign would like to seibert relations between u.s. and russia. all this is important because gordon says he was part of a trump campaign effort to put a change in the republican party platform that advocated against the arming of the ukrainians and the fight against the prorussian rebels. that was a hot topic at the time. j.d. gordon tells me, at no time during the conversations was there talk of a quick proquo and in exchange for doing this at the convention, the trump campaign was hoping for help from the russians. he said nothing like that was discussed with the russian ambassador. the reason they saw the change in the republican party platform is earlier in the year, in march, during a national security meeting at the unfinished hotel in washington, d.c., and a meeting chaired business jeff sessions, the attorney general, then candidate trump talked about his desir

j.d. gordon's comments. they were first reported in the usa today newspaper, but he told me that he did have a conversation with sara huckabee sanders who is the deputy press secretary at the white house to brief her on the conversation was the russian ambassador and other security advisers to the candidate at the time that that did occur over the summer. >> jim, a senior administration officials also confirm a meeting between that same ambassador official in the trump tower with trump officials, trump advisers. . tell us about that. >> this was first reported in the "new york times" but cnn has been able to confirm through a senior administration official, sara murray was able to confirm this that, yes, in fact, michael flynn who was a top adviser to president-elect trump back in december along with jared kushner the president-elect's son-in-law at the time met with the russian ambassador at trump tower in december. that is now being confirmed by the white house through a senior administration official. it

team that used to be around donald trump has not helped the president of the united states when j.d. gordon comes out and says yeah, we did bring up a conversation about russia at the convention. when it turns out that paul man ford was at a meeting when russia was brought up at a. when it comes out that senator sessions doesn't remember meeting with the ambassador. when carter paige says we did talk about russia at the convention. all these things might add up to nothing. but don't you believe they are hurting the president by not jogging their memory and coming forward with it? >> they are a distraction more than harmful. no i disagree. he got elected about 118, 119 days ago. you still hear the democrats screaming russia every day. they have haven't shown any connection. many people are trying to redo the election results still. this man has been president for a while now and he is going to continue to just move forward with his agenda. brian: you don't think those four people hurt the president? >> i think the president knows why he is here and what he is doing with his agenda. look, aga

so just me and michael flynn and j.d. gordon. so just me, michael flynn and j.d. and jared kushner at trump tower. so me, michael flynn, jd gordon and jared kushner at trump tower and carter page and paul manafort. i'm going to have another one of these chocolates. >> snl bringing in forrest gump, pretty ingenious. thanks for joining me. another hour of "cnn newsroom" with hanna vaughn jones from london coming up right after the break. mom, i just saved a lot of money on my car insurance by switching to geico. i should take a closer look at geico... you know, geico can help you save money on your homeowners insurance too? great! geico can help insure our mountain chalet! how long have we been sawing this log? um, one hundred and fourteen years. man i thought my arm would be a lot more jacked by now. i'm not even sure this is real wood. there's no butter in this churn. do my tris look okay? take a closer look at geico. great savings. and a whole lot more. today, unlimited gets the network it deserves. verizon. (mic thuds) uh, sorry. it's unlimited without compromis

three national security advisers, carter page, j.d. gordonid ferris meeting with the ambassador at the rmc in july like sessions did. here is what the president said just two weeks ago. >> i have nothing to do with russia. to the best of my knowledge, no person that i deal with does. >> no person that i deal with does. now we know about all these previously undisclosed meetings. this is a white house that constantly complains about what they call fake news. >> well, they can keep complaining, but it doesn't mean it's fake news. look, i don't think it's necessarily out of bounds that a candidate for president, a republican nominee, especially somebody who is not a part of the political process for very long, that major players in the world would want to meet with him and people connected with him to figure out what he's about and what his administration might look like. the issue gets back to the president's soft treatment, apologetic treatment of russia and vladimir putin from the beginning of the campaign and the fact that we know that vladi

j.d. gordon admits to the inclusi inclusion. later the first e-mails damaging to hillary clinton appear. the leading private cyber security firms including crowd strike, mannedion and threat connect review the evidence of the hack and conclude with high certainty that it was the work of apt 28 and 29 who are known to be russian intelligence services. the u.s. intelligence community also later confirms that the documents were in fact stolen by russian intelligence and gusifer 2 acted as a front. in late july candidate trump praises wikileaks, says he loves them and openly encourages them to hack his opponents and they will be rewarded. and in the middle of august, he creates with the russian cutout gusifer 2 and offers a breitbart piece denying connection to russian intelligence. in august, stone does something remarkable. when he predicts that john podesta's personal e-mails will soon be published, trust me, he says, it will soon be podesta's time in the barrel, #crooked hillary. in the weeks that follow, stone says i have total

former trump aide j.d. gordon used to say he had no role in it. now he said he did change the platform, warming it towards russia because of donald trump. as all these shifts unfold, we don't know how they track with these investigations. it's hard to ever learn about investigations in realtime because they're secret. legislators can get some information about them and some legislators get more than others. take the gang of eight. under federal law these are the eight congressional leaders who get special briefings on intelligence, which can include investigations, and it is those leaders who fbi director james comey was briefing today. now, we have no idea what they talked about. we can infer from that rsvp list it was not about a drug raid. it was at least about some kind of intelligence, maybe russian, maybe somewhere else. here is a senator on the intelligence committee saying, yes, if it looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. if the timing of all these leaks seems to coincide with this growing understanding of this russia connection, maybe

he's a former trump campaign official named j.d. gordon and he says as a trump campaign official at the time taking orders from the trump campaign at the time he's the one who did it. he says now that he was the one who interceded in the republican party platform to get this language that would keep russia happy and he says he did it specifically at donald trump's request. >> gordon says he was a part of the effort that was pushed by the trump campaign to put some language in the gop platform that essentially said that the republican party did not advocate for arming the ukrainians in their battle against pro-russian separatists. that was a big issue flaring up at the time of the republican convention. that effort was successful in having that language in the republican party platform. and i asked j.d. gordon, why did you advocate for that language? and he said this is the language donald trump himself wanted and advocated for. >> this is just one thing that happened on the trump campaign. it was weird at the time. we got these denials tha

former campaign advisor j.d. gordon tells cnn he and another foreign policy advisor carter discussed u.s.-russian relations with the ambassador. a meeting page did not deny on msnbc. >> so you're not going to deny you talked with him in cleveland? >> i do not deny that. >> reporter: heading into the convention he says he argued for language in the republican party platform that opposed the ukraine and pro russian separatists. he sought the meeting at a meeting in the trump hotel in d.c. earlier in the year when trump himself said he did not want to go to war with russia over ukraine. i was doing what the boss want the, gordon tells cnn. contrast that with former campaign chairman paul manafort who says they did not seerk the change in the party platform. >> it did not come from trump campaign. >> reporter: though trump appeared to acknowledge an interview in the same day. sea they so muftened it, i was involved. >> reporter: jared kushner and michael flynn also sat down with the ambassador at a previously undisclosed me

. >> j.d. gordonalled up new york and interview in the daily beast about that at the time. >> when i heard j.d. gordon's name, with all due respect to mr. gordon i had to look him up on wikipedia. i didn't know who this guy was. so platforms for things. >> but manafort only worked there for a short time and flynn was barely national security adviser. problem is, these patterns, we know as of today there's an investigation. that's serious. that's serious and it's not normal and we're going to have to proceed with it. it's not about delegit miedsing a president, it's about pursuing an investigation. >> this goes back to my point about the clinton campaign and now knowing what it's like to have some charges be thrown out there. i mean, this is just -- it's obviously ridiculous. to say that the campaign was somehow colluding with a foreign government, that's pretty outrageous. this is outlandish stuff. >> outland dish. >> it's ridiculous. >> we know from his own donald trump had outreached to wikileaks. h

later j.d. gordon admits opposing the inclusion of the provision at the time it was being debate and prior to its being removed. later in july, and after the convention, the first stolen e-mails detrimental to hillary clinton appear on wikileaks. a hacker who goes by the moniker guccifer 2.0 claims responsibility for hacking the dnc and giving the documents to wikileaks. the leading private cyber security firms including crowdstracrow crowdstrike and threatconnect:00 with high certainty it was the work of apt 28 and apt 29 who are known to be russian intelligence services. the u.s. intelligence community also later confirms that the documents in fact stolen by russian intelligence and guccifer 2.0 acted as a front. in late july candidate trump praises wikileaks, says he loves them and openly appeals to the russians to hack his opponents' e-mails, telling them they will be richly rewarded by the press. on august 8th, roger stone, a long time trump political adviser and self-proclaimed political dirty tr

j.d. gordon, national security adviser for the trump campaign, was forced later to admit that, in fact, he had weighed in against the amendment that would have provided the u.s. should give lethal defensive weapons to ukraine. i would join my chairman in asking you to look into this. particularly since we know that ambassador kislyak attended the convention and if there was any communication between russia and campaign, if that had any coordination resulting in the defeat of an amendment that was against russian interests, the committee would certainly like to know and we welcome that inquiry. mr. heck. >> thank you, ranking member. there are a lot of emotions kicking around in this room today. i perceive anger and outrage and subdued somberness. the one i feel over whelmingly is sadness. we've heard nothing but terribly disturbing evidence of what has happened to our country at the hands of arguably our greatest adversary. what's worse, the evidence we've heard so far all seems, all seems, to le

>> j.d. gordon, carter paige. >> carter paige. a brand-new name. who are these people? this new group of people. they seem to be operating between the west and the east and associated, somewhat, with trump. >> monomanafort is well known in ukraine. >> which side, good or bad? >> knowing to help russia and russian interests with the ukrainians in power at the time. he has a lot of money. we saw where he gave money to manafort. i believe the fbi is investigating. >> carter paige going over, doing graduation speeches in russia? they don't speak russian, do they? what's going on here? >> carter paige came out of nowhere. >> they have to be payoffs. >> a mysterious character who came out of nowhere. then the campaign threw him overboard, we never knew him, as soon as he started to be -- >> steve help us out here. i'm sorry. >> putin from the -- sorry. that's a russian oil company, state owned, closely allied with them. >> you talked about the piece you broke today. tell us about this code of people that seem to be in and out of moscow all the time. >> specifically carter pai

know that three members of trump's national security advisory committee, senator jeff sessions, j.d. gordon, carter page, all spoke with the russian ambassador during the campaign. additionally just before the republican convention, carter page traveled to moscow where he delivered a commencement address -- ken vogel of politico reports, "page e-mailed campaign manager corey lewandowski and spokeswoman asking for formal approval for the trip and told by lewandowski he would make a trip to moscow but not as an official representative of the campaign." corey lewandowski telling politico "i don't remember that, i probably got a thousand e-mails at that time and don't remember every single one i sent. i wouldn't necessarily remember if i had a one-word response to him saying he would do something as a private citizen." page left the campaign in september. trump campaign officials later distanced themselves from him. late today a source close to former utah governor jon huntsman tells nbc news that huntsman was offered and has accepted the position to be the next u.s. ambassador of russia. joine

j.d. gordon a national security adviser for the trump campaign was forced later to admit in fact he had weighed in against the amendment that would have provided that the u.s. should give lethal defensive weapons to ukraine. so i i would join my chairman in asking you to look into this, particularly since we know that ambassador kislyak attended the convention and if there was any communication between the russians and the trump campaign that had the effect and the coordination that resulted in the defeat of an amendment that was against russian interests. the committee would certainly like to know. and we welcome that inquiry. mr. heck? >> thank you ranking member. there are a lot of emotions kicking around in this room today. i perceive anger and outrage and subdued some betterness. the one i feel overwhelmingly is sadness. we have heard nothing but terribly disturbing evidence of what has happened to our country at the hands of arguably our greatest adversary. and what's worse, the evidence we

kushner; former national security adviser michael flynn; and campaign advisers carter page and j.d. gordon. senator jeff sessions met with kislyak twice, once at the republican convention and once in september in sessions' senate office. michael mcfaul was the u.s. ambassador to russia from 2012 to 2014. >> of course, ambassador kislyak is meeting with senator sessions not to talk about what his committee is doing. he could care less about that. he's talking to them to find out about what the candidate trump is thinking and planning about foreign policy. >> reporter: in november, mr. trump's spokeswoman told the associated press, "there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity." the president has also denied any contact. >> i have nothing to do with russia. >> reporter: the russian embassy declined comment on kislyak's meetings, but he has boasted about his deep contacts in the u.s. >> i personally have been working in the united states so long that i know almost everybody. >> reporter: kislyak has also met with top democrats, like chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. th

to ma pointhat point, malcolm, e at least five members of the trump campaign at the time, j.d. gordon -- i'm sorry, at least five members of the trump campaign that we know of, sorry, that were talking with the russian ambassador, and it includes now jeff sessions, who at the time was a surrogate for the campaign and is now attorney general but who has now recused himself. in your view, what does all of this mean? >> all of this goes back to the fundamental question which has not been answered, which there appears to be a lot of d dissimulation going on, which is why? why were these people in communication with moscow or representatives of moscow at all? it comes down to one of two things. clearly they were not just innocent, these were not part of their everyday duties. they seemed to have a vested interest in a line of communication with moscow. in my world that only comes down to one of two things. money or espionage. let's take espionage off the table right now. we know there's a lot of money right here. they believe that moscow is this giant font of cash. but i can just touch for

kellyanne conway claims that donald trump didn't know or work with two of his advisers carter page or j.d. gordon also linked to russia. >> raise an excellent point in the case of mr. page, mr. gordon, others, have attenuated contacts to the campaign that i managed for the last three months. spoken directly to the president and other senior officials. he didn't know these gentlemen, didn't work with them. sean spicer addressed this in his briefing. he's absolutely right. others more involved in the campaign that seem to be of interest but where is the nexus? people are quick to make that nexus. >> play what donald trump said to "the washington post" editorial board. >> during the week be announcing some names. >> anything you can start off with this morning with us? >> i hadn't thought in terms of doing it. could give you some names. wouldn't mind. ferris who you probably know. ph.d., adviser to the house of representatives caucus and is a counterterrorism expert. carter page, ph.d. george pap dop loss, oil and energy consultant. excellent guy. honorable joe smits, inspector general at department

carter paige, j.d. gordon and -- met with him.eptember 2016 jeff sessions meets one-on-one with the ambassador in his office and december 2016 jared kushner and michael flynn met with the ambassador. he's known as top spy recruiter. why meeting with him? what is going on here? >> i worked as foreign policy adviser on three presidential campaigns, and i don't remember having these contacts with hostile foreign powers and goes beyond this. "new york times" reported that u.s. and dutch intelligence have found communications. if there's benign explanation i'd love to hear it. not hearing that. we're hearing the real problem in the leaks and this is mccarthyism, engaging in name calling and not explaining what is going on. this is serious. we need to get to the bottom of this, know what happened. this was attack on the foundations of our democracy going on by the russians at the same time that all these trump people were meeting with the russians. >> sometimes officials do meet with foreign ambassadors and agencies. >> of course. >> wh

later j.d. gordonits the provision of the at the time it was being debated and prior to the time of it being removed. in later in july and after the convention, the first stolen e-mails detrimental to hillary clinton appear on wikileaks. a hacker who goes did the monicker goosifer 2 claims responsibility for hacking the dnc and giving the documents to wiki leads. the evidence was reviewed and conclude with high certainty it was the work of apt 28 and apt 29, who are known to be russian intelligence services. the u.s. intelligence community confirms the documents were stolen by russian intelligence and goosifer was a front. also in late july, candidate trump praises wikileaks, says he loves them and openly tells the russians to hack the e-mails and be richly reward eed by the pre. and on october 28th, roger stone boasts in a speech that he communicated with assange and more documents would be coming including an october surprise. in the middle of august, he communicates with a russian cut-out, goosifer

not from him and now j.d. gordon played a role in weakening that language. his aide.nnections. fundamentally back to the same question when i was in high school, back to watergate, what did the president know and when did he know it? we don't know the answer to that. i don't want to prejudge it but independent commission needs to do it. >> i was watching anderson cooper and wanted to say what just happened. didn't do that. what did you think of the interview? >> with carter page? i don't know what to make of it. i don't think that carter page was some sort of major secret liaison. i don't think jeff sessions was a secret liaison. if there was collusion as the dossier said, i think it was other people. paul manafort is someone who i think everybody has got to focus on. has to be research on him. >> one other note -- >> can i also say, trump taxes, there's real question whether the russians had leverage over the trump family through investments they had made. can't resolve that without seeing the trump taxes. >> mark sanford is calling on the president to release taxes

who-- surprise-- also met with trump advisers carter page and j.d. gordon. everyone trump knows have a relationship with the russian ambassador? hold on. wait a second. can we-- jim, do you have a picture of bannon's nanny? there you go. she checks out. that's fine. ( laughter ) speaking of american institutions... disney. they've had a long history of progressive values, from their positive depiction of a woman with seven husbands to touting the benefits of hallucinogenic. drugs. ( laughter ) and now disney has struck another blow for open-mindedness. >> the new movie "beauty and the beast" will feature disney's first openly gay character. the director revealed that gaston's sidekick, la fou, played by actor josh gad, will explore his sexuality in a small, but significant subplot. >> stephen: now, if you don't remember lafou from "beauty and the beast," he's this guy. ( laughter ) ( applause ) no, no! wait, wait! no! jimmy, that's the wrong incompetent sidekick who sucks up to the bad guy. yeah, that's the one. right there. ( laughter ) first off, i just wa

the russian diplomat also met with trump campaign advisers j.d. gordontrump's son-in-law and senior adviser jared kushner. and filed paperwork with the justice department last week identifying flynn as a foreign agent. acknowledging he worked for a turkish owned company that may have benefitted turkey's president while advising trump and attending top level intel briefings. the white house at first denied any knowledge of what flynn was doing and eventually had to own it. the trump team owning that they were aware of flynn's work. all right two other points of intrigue also emerging this weekend. the first, hacked text messages allegedly from one of paul manafort's daughter. he was the campaign chairman for awhile. point to possible influence between him and a former ukrainian president. lead to the deadly crack down and in 2014 and they come from his daughter. and he is currently under investigation as well for other millions and also denied taking any undeclared payments. the second related to political adviser roger stone. he's manafort's former busin

you have jeff sessions, michael flynn, jared kushner, carter page, j.d. gordon. there's a lot of smoke here, but is there any fire? and where do you see all of this going? >> well i like that comparison of a drip drip drip. now the faucet is running full and it's going and it's not going to stop. that's president trump rejecting any kind of investigation. if they were just forthright, we have nothing to hide. we were talking to russian diplomat counterparts, this could go away, if that is in fact what happened. by looking like they're covering up something. the fact that all of these advisers have changed their stories so many times, it's just a cloud of suspicion that it really is going to dog his presidency for at least the first two years as the investigation continues. >> let's talk about the gallup poll that came out yesterday. we are roughly 50 days into the trump administration. his disapproval numbers just north of 50%. they continue to be among the lowest of any president at this point in their administration in modern history. numbers like that, what do

and j.d. gordonity advisor to the trump campaign, admitting he met with the russian ambassador during the gop convention in cleveland in july, along with advisors carter page and what lead faris. gordon claims there was no discussion of colluding with russia to help trump win. >> all right. this morning we are learning about a possible missed opportunity for the young trump administration to avoid some of these repeated accusations of ethical lapses. it turns out the transition team canceled an ethics training session for the white house staff days before the president took office. documents obtained by cnn reveal the general services administration planned to help cabinet nominees and employees work through their confirmation hearings and work effective little with congress and other federal agencies. that training was scrapped by the incoming trump administration. it claims to have saved cost, the white house counsel's office handled ethics training for the staff. >>> infighting erupting in the rep

j.d. gordonoo met with kislyak at the republican national convention in july. he emphasized there wasn't any inappropriate chatter with the russians to help the trump campaign and there's more. two other national security advisers were also part of that meeting. more meetings and more denials. only leads to more questions. >> if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset not a liability. >> reporter: randi kaye, cnn, norfolk, virginia. >>> okay. well we have the assistant head of the program here at chatham house who is joining me here on the set. thank you very much. we need to talk about russia of course just following up from randy's report here. but i want to quickly mention the wiretapping allegations. this is quite unprecedented isn't it to have a sitting president accuse a former president of crime. >> if president bush had accused clinton this would be a massive break, but it's sort of in keeping with trump's tradition that he's established. he's willing to sort of throw out the w

. >> and he yo tal with j.d. gordon as well. what did he say? >> he was aittleore open about his interactions. he said this was an event in conjunction with the rnc. there were ambassadors from dozens of countries and the russian ambassador was one of the people that he spoke about -- spoke with envelopally at the event. so he was a little more open about the interambassadors. >> steve reilly of "usa today." thanks you. appreciate it. nicole wallace was asked about that this morning on the "today" show. i want to play you what she said. listen. >> you can't give me one real simple great answer as to why all this would be happening, simple, logical explanation. >> there is none. so many people having so many contacts and not remembering, it doesn't make sense. they're even the most forgetful team in political history or the most intimate with russia. >> so which is it, most forgetful or most intimate with russia? >> there's an innocent explanation for almost any of these meetings you hear about, coming to trump tower, meeting with jared kushner.

. >> but former trump policy adviser j.d. gordon tells nbc news that man forth was not fortwrite with us. gordon says he was in the room and told the committee chairman that the amendment was a, quote, problem for the campaign. gordon also met with the russian ambassador at the convention. and then there is carter page, one-time trump foreign policy adviser who was also at the meeting. he has changed his story about meeting with russian officials. >> i had no meetings. no meetings. >> but on thursday, page's answer changed. >> did you meet sergey kislyak in cleveland? did you talk to him? >> i -- i am not going to deny that i talked with him. >> by the way, we contacted paul manafort last night. he told us that he has, quote, always been forth right with us and had no knowledge of the platform change until the sunday after the convention so he couldn't have authorized the change. joining me now senator marco rubio, republican of florida. senator rubio, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you. good morning. >> good morning. yo

j.d. gordonisclosed that he, too, met with kislyak at the republican national convention in july. he emphasized there wasn't inappropriate chatter with the russians to help the trump campaign. two other national security advisers were also part of that meeting. walid phares and carter page. it only leads to nmore question. >> if putin likes trump, i consider that an asset, not a liability. >> reporter: randi kay, norfolk, virginia. >>> alexander birchbough, thank you for be being with us. the allegations and connections between this administration and russia, what's your reaction? it does seem every week or so there's a new questions are raised, something else emerges, and yet we don't really know if there is any there there. >> yeah. well, clearly the questions just keep mounting day by day. it's not because of meetings as such with the russian ambassador. that's a normal thing. i used to meet with the russian ambassador all the time, but it's why there's so much coverup. it's raising more suspi

j.d. gordon it was director of national security in the trump campaign's policy office, he's said to have been the other aide with carter page when he met the russian ambassador at the rnc and he told cnn's jim acosta that he and others advocated for gop platform to include language against arming youk ining ukrai according to him, trump said at the meeting in march he didn't want to go to world war iii over ukraine." looming over all this are allegations contained in that unverified dossier compiled by a former british intelligence agent that russia would release embarrassing democratic e-mails through wikileaks as a quid pro quo for the trump campaign sidelining russians intervention as a campaign issue. days after the republican platform was changed, the first dnc e-mails dropped. i'm joined by julia ioffe. this gordon interview strikes me as enormous news. this was always just a strange story, it was a strange story at the time, you saw chuck todd asked about it, stephanopoulos, why are you s

you know, carter page, j.d. gordon, foreign policy advisers to trump, were talking to russians. we know paul manafort was caught talking to russian intelligence whether he realized it or not. so everything the trump campaign has basically said to us up until this, you know, orgasmic tweet fest about obama being the one to blame, has been untrue and it's going to continue to be untrue. >> this morning, general michael hayden, former director of the cia and the nsa, was asked to speculate about the madness of these tweets this weekend and speculating about the madness of a president is not easy and it's not common and none of us have practice doing it because we've never been asked about it before. general hayden's best guess was, as he put it, the president of the united states put his own reputation, the reputation of his predecessor and reputation of his nation at risk, in order, as he put it, to manipulate the news cycle." naveed, when you see this kind of behavior out of president trump, is there a professional lens that you can use to look at it and try to divine motivation?

it was j.d. gordon who approved page's trip to moscow, ambassador kislyak also meets with trump national campaign chair and now jeff sessions. sessions would later deny meeting with russian officials during his senate confirmation hearing. just prior to the convention, the republican party platform is changed, removing a section that supports the provision of lethal defensive weapons to ukraine, an action that would be contrary to russian interests. manafort denyies altering the platform. it was removed at the insistence of the trump campaign. later in july, and after the convention, the first stolen e-mails detrimental to hillary clinton appear on wikileaks. he claims responsibility for hacking the dnc and giving the information to wikileaks. review the evidence of the hack, and conclude with high certainty that it was the work of apt 28 and 29 who are known to be russian intelligence services the u.s. intelligence community confirms the documents were stolen by russian intelligence and louiser if 2 ac

sessions, michael flynn, jared kushner and trump campaign advisers carter page and j.d. gordon all met with the russian ambassador prior to the inauguration. the white house says the meeting with kushner was brief, introductory in nature, and requested by the russians. we also know that michael flynn once delivered a paid speech in moscow at a dinner celebrating a state-owned russian news outlet. former campaign manager paul manafort was a paid adviser to a pro-russian ukrainian president and secretary of state rex tillerson previously led energy giant exxonmobil which has a longstanding business relationship with russia. but when it comes to business, we actually know little about the president's own financial interests because he has not released his tax returns. president trump has repeatedly denied having any business ties in russia. joining me now to discuss is anne garen, national politics correspondent for the "washington post," thank you so much for joining me. >> happy to be here, thank you. >> first on sessions, your colleague, robert costa, is reporting today that th

. >> "usa today" today reporting that two other trump campaign officials, carter page and j.d. gordon had another previously undisclosed meeting with kislyak during the convention. what may be problematic and we've seen this before is this drip, drip, drip, it keeps it on the front page of newspapers, keeps us talking, even though the white house keeps saying there isn't any there there. especially if you're a democrat, how do you get to any there there? >> they have an uphill bottattl. before the obama administration left office, they did their best to process and finish reports. republicans have agreed to cooperate. i think we're going to see in the coming months where that goes. but how you actually figure out the there there is going to be an incredibly complex task. i suspect we'll be talking about it for a while to come. >> matthew rosenberg, another great day of reporting. thank you for coming on the program. everyone wants to know who is this guy at the center of the storm? jeff sessions called him an old style soviet type ambassador. he was in the room for the president's add

attendee j.d. gordon told cnn. senator jeff sessions was one of them. appearing before a senate hearing on his confirmation, he said this when asked about possible contacts between the trump campaign and russian officials -- >> i didn't -- did not have communications with the russians. and i'm unable to comment on it. >> reporter: after taking office, sessions, now attorney general, admitted that he, too, as a senator met with kisliak twice during the campaign. he said it was in his capacity as a senator, not a member of the trump campaign. sessions decided to recuse himself from any investigation related to the campaign. amidst all of this, the president himself took to twitter, making this shocking claim -- "how low has president obama gone to tap my phones during this very sacred election process? this is nixon/watergate. bad or sick guy!" the accusation was made without any evidence to back it up but led the white house to ask congress to add this wrinkle to their broad investigation into russia's role in the election. at this point, even republican

now it turns out in fact that j.d. gordon played a role in weakening that language. his aide.e dots, all these connections, and it fundamentally goes back to the same question when i was in high school of back to watergate. what did the president know, and when did he know it? we don't know the answer to that. i don't want to pre-judge it, but only an independent commission is going to resolve that. >> i usually get ready for my show in my office, and i'm watching my colleague anderson cooper do interviews. tonight i watched and wanted to go into the studio during the break and say, what just happened? >> with the carter page? >> what did you think of that interview? >> i don't know what to make of it. i guess i don't think that carter page was some kind of a major secret liaison. i don't think jeff sessions was a secret liaison. if there was collusion as the dossier said, then i think it was other people. you know, paul manafort is somebody who is, i think, everybody has got to focus on. there has to be research on him. >> one more on another note before i let you go. >> can